Request for sound wall falls on deaf ears

Residents of the Saratoga Hills/Saratoga Ranch community in Calabasas have long complained about the year-round traffic noise along the 101 Freeway, and although Los Angeles County had planned to build a series of soundwalls with the local portion finished by next year, the project has been delayed due to a lack of funding, officials said.

Hoping to protect residents from the freeway noise, the Calabasas City Council said it would begin putting pressure on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to get the work done.

“The cost of construction has almost doubled,” said Robert Yalda, Calabasas Transportation/ Intergovernmental Relations Director. “(The MTA’s) original guesstimate (sic) was (based on) the dollar value of 1988 . . . Based on their projections, they should’ve been on phase three and we should’ve had a soundwall by 2005-2006.”

Yalda said the Calabasas soundwall could be delayed until 2008.

Caltrans has a $2 billion budget for the L.A. County soundwalls, according to officials. But the soundwall isn’t even in the conceptual stages, Calabasas officials said.

The Calabasas soundwall belongs to phase two (or is given second priority) in the soundwall project and not even phase one is fully funded, officials said.

“The only way we’ll change the (funding) schedule is if you (the Calabasas City Council) pay for the entire soundwall and hope you get reimbursed,” Yalda told the city council.

The city faces an uphill battle, City Councilmember Dennis Washburn said.

“A delegation from this council to meet with Frank Roberts, who is our representative on MTA’s board, would be a good first step. Then to deal with all the city reps in the MTA region who are elected municipal officials on the board,” Washburn said. “That doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a lot of success, but that’s the only avenue at this point that I can see—and we’ve tried just about everything.”

The city will send at least two council members to an upcoming MTA meeting to address the matter.